1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data communication system, an address management apparatus, a data communication apparatus, an address management method, and an address management program. More particularly, the present invention relates to a data communication system which transmits data to a destination address stored in advance, an address management apparatus and a data communication apparatus included in the data communication system, and an address management method and an address management program executed thereby.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, multi function peripherals (hereinafter, referred to as “MFPs”) are capable of transmitting data by various communication methods including facsimile, e-mail, Internet facsimile, FTP and others. The MFP prestores address data associating names of destinations with their addresses, to facilitate designation of a destination. Once the user designates the name of the destination, the address of the destination is set to allow data to be transmitted thereto. When the MFP is used by a plurality of users and a single set of address data is stored in the MFP, the address data set is shared by the plurality of users. In this case, if the respective users cause the MFP to store address records, the number of address records increases, rendering selection of a desired address record difficult. Thus, there is known a technique to manage the address data for each user.
Further, in the apparatus to which data is to be transmitted, specifications of the data that can be received and output by the apparatus, including resolution, size, coding scheme and others, are predetermined. As such, data needs to be transmitted in accordance with the specifications corresponding to the destination apparatus. Further, it may be necessary to encrypt data with a public key determined by a receiver before transmission, in case of data leakage. When the specifications of data and the public key are included in the address data, once the name of the destination is designated, the data may be transmitted in accordance with the specifications the apparatus at the destination can receive and output, or the data may be transmitted which is encrypted by the public key determined by the receiver.
In the case where the address data is managed for each user, however, there may be a plurality of pieces of address data having the same destination but managed by different users. In such a case, the specifications of data to be transmitted or the public key for encryption will need to be registered for respective ones of the address data of the respective users.
Further, in the case where the MFP stores address data shared by a plurality of users, a plurality of MFPs may each store the address data including the same destination. In such a case, even if the specifications of data and/or the public key for encryption included in the address data in one MFP are updated, those in the address data including the same destination stored in another MFP are not updated. That is, updating of the specifications and/or the public key needs to be carried out in each of the MFPs.